The Kids Don't Get It

As I get older, I find it simultaneously amusing and horrifying at how in some ways I'm turning into my parents. There are many more ways that I'm not like my parents, but now some of the things they'd say that drove me crazy when I was a kid, I actually find myself agreeing with.

My parents were very overprotective, which of course I hated. They made me quit my part-time job senior year of high school because they thought it was affecting my schoolwork. They wouldn't let me go to the senior prom after-party because they were worried I'd be too tired driving home; never mind the fact that I had already been working night crews and had driven home plenty of times after working all night, and the fact that not being able to go made me look like a wuss. I couldn't wait to go to college and get the hell out of the house.

But while some of their decisions were nonsensical and borderline insane, I can understand where they came from. Especially when I read stories like this one about a 15-year-old girl who was gang raped by a group of students outside a school dance. As a father of two girls, it makes me want to not let them out of the friggin' house. Knowing what's out there in the world is enough to turn a parent into an overprotective psycho. But you can't shelter kids forever. You have to teach them to make the right decisions and hope they can follow through. Right? Even when they go to college and beyond, I hope my girls have the good sense not to drink to the point where some asshole can take advantage of them. I've seen so many women put themselves in such a stupor that they become easy prey. There's just so much that's out of my control. But it has always been that way for parents, I suppose.

Funny thing is, even though my parents were very controlling in some ways, I had a lot of freedom in others. I walked to school with my buddies, went trick-or-treating without parental supervision for hours on end, was out playing all day long in the summertime while both my parents worked. It was the late '70s. It was no big deal for 7-year-old boys to be out on their own all day without adults around. We'd play street hockey, ride our bikes all over town, buy candy and comic books, just do kid stuff. There was no fear of predators or even other kids picking on us. Think that could happen today? Hell, no. And there's no way I'd let my 7-year-old walk down the street by herself nowadays. Part of it's paranoia, part of it's justified. I'm not sure if things are really more dangerous now or if child abductions/assaults are just reported and publicized much more these days.

I try to think back to how I was as a 7-year-old and Hannah still seems so much less mature to me. I don't know if that's accurate or if I've got this unrealistic image of myself at that age, but I do remember that we were already swearing back then. Certainly not in front of our parents or other authority figures, but amongst ourselves, definitely. I remember feeling guilty about it at times, but boys will be boys, right? The fact was, I had this whole other reality that my parents didn't know about. When I was hanging out with my buddies, I was a wise-ass, cracking jokes, tossing insults, goofing off. At home, I kept that under wraps so I wouldn't get a smack from my dad.

Hopefully, my kids won't feel the need to hide stuff from me like I did from my parents. But I'm sure it'll happen at some point, especially as they get into their teens and get all rebellious. My thing was just to go into my room and listen to music. I didn't drink and thus wasn't a partier, so it was rock and comics for me. So when it comes time for the girls to not want anything to do with me because I'm old and don't understand them, I hope I don't take it too hard. Because it's gonna happen.

Here's a hot jam from the days of my youth in the Toronto suburbs: